Now Norma Knits

Terrier Tuesday -- Post-Holiday Edition

Dear Readers,

We are all just a little bit tired this morning. The last week or so was a whirlwind, I'll tell you. I was just going through the family Christmas photo album to get ready for writing this post, and I started to think that maybe I'm losing my mind! I'm only three years old -- surely that is too young to start losing my memory, isn't it? Maybe I just had too much rum punch.

But none of this looks familiar. It's like a dream. It's almost like I wasn't THERE!

Here, take a peek: 

 

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Oh, waaaaaait a minute.

I know what's wrong with these pictures.

I wasn't there.

Bogus.

Love,

 

Mr. Jefferies

P.S. Hope you all had lovely holidays!

 

 

 

 

 

Two Posts in Two Days -- The Beginning of a Trend?

Cookie asked:  Yeah but did you eat at the diner? ;^)

Well, I'm glad you asked, Cookie. We sure did. We ate at the [old] Eveready Diner on Friday night, and I am sorry to report that everything was bad that night. Everything! If that had been the first time we had gone there, we never would have gone back. Thankfully, we had a long history of happy meals there, or we would not be able to forgive the cocktails that tasted like cough syrup and were spilling over the sides of the glasses. (Tip to makers of margaritas: If it's splashing over the side, the salt rim is washed away, and Norma, for one, is not happy -- even assuming that the drink was palatable otherwise, which it really wasn't.) In addition, that was my first taste of alcohol since being on these meds, and it really did not sit well, so that was my mistake.

The mac & cheese was at best uninspired (and we've had some really killer mac & cheese at that place in years past). The burgers were likewise rather tasteless and unimpressive.

We could not understand a word that came out of the mouth of the server. Correction: I, you will recall, am a professional listener. And so I had to translate everything he mumbled to my tablemates. Sandy just started saying, "Yeah," to everything he said, and I'd translate after he left. The whole night was just a bit of a disaster. 

It's not just that they were super-busy, because they have ALWAYS been super-busy all those many other times we've gone there and enjoyed great food, great service, great cocktails. It appears that they have sent all their good staff and good food over to the brand-spanking-new one that they built directly across from the fairgrounds.

That's me and Jenn walking in for breakfast at the new place.

It was fabulous.

All the same fixtures and decor and menu as the original, but so clean and new and shiny, with the same great food and wonderful service we've come to expect from the Eveready. 

Win! (With a caveat: We only ate breakfast there -- twice. So I can't report on lunch or dinner success or failure.)

We are hoping that our bad experience that Friday night was just a fluke.

Hey! That's two posts in two days! I have vowed to try to do better with the blog. It is so easy to get out of a good habit, isn't it? I've even saved up some content so I have more to blog about later. (Smart me.) 

 

Radio Silence Was Unintentional

Hi! The emails and comments have started to pile up and are growing with urgency wondering if Mr. Jefferies and I are OK, so I thought I should drop in and say hello. I'm sorry to alarm everyone by not posting, and by leaving that last post up there describing the little boy not feeling well. He was fine by the next day. In fact, I am a little bit embarrassed to mention it could have just been that he was very hungry that night. I discovered this might have been true when I finally went down to the kitchen with him and he looked dolefully at me and his empty dish until I got a clue and gave him some kibble, which he promptly scarfed down. What's that internet expression: facepalm? Yeah.

Then I had to get packed to come to one of the more beautiful parts of Vermont for a few days of work.  

I'm practically sitting on top of Quechee Gorge, which is a very beautiful place, truly in that God's Country kind of way. Unfortunately it has been pouring rain the whole time I've been here.

But rain be damned, I had the most pleasurable, memorable and delicious lunch yesterday at Simon Pearce Restaurant. If you look at that photo on the front page of their website, that is exactly where I sat -- on their screened porch right on top of the falls. It was awesome in every way.  

Wherein The Ankle Says HEY, STOP THAT

The sexy new ankle brace is miles better than the old getup I had, and it served me very well on my away job this week. It's not too bad looking, and I'm not limping much at all anymore. If I wear a lot of black, or some styling bootcut jeans, most people don't even notice I'm wearing a brace.

I was feeling so chipper, in fact, that when I got home yesterday afternoon, I changed into some gardening clothes. While I was waiting for Mr. Jefferies to get home from his sleepover (He also became [one of the] Office Dog[s] at Burton Snowboards for three days, where he gained all sorts of new fans, I'm told. Dude.), I went out to survey what was happening in the garden. 

Given how well the ankle was doing over the past three days, and how well I was feeling overall, I thought that I might even be able to get some serious gardening done this weekend. Or if not serious, then at least semi-serious.

I did a few things -- I had quite a lot of asparagus that was ready to be cut, and quite a bit of lettuce and fresh mint -- which I gave to Mr. Jefferies' babysitter as a thank-you gift. I watered some things. I have new baby beets, spinach, carrots, onions, lettuces, and Swiss chard, and the plum trees are covered with blossoms. I have everbearing strawberry blossoms, and some pear blossoms. 

I removed the very lightweight coldframe from over the top of the lettuces and kales and cabbages, which can all now fend for themselves quite nicely, and moved it to a different bed where I put in some zucchini seeds. This is very early for those heat-loving zukes, but I'm betting that the cold frame will keep it warm like a hothouse and they'll be fine -- maybe even better than usual. And I sowed some broccoli seeds all over a 3X3 bed. I'll eat the babies, thinning them out to the six full-size plants that a bed that size can handle. 

And that was pretty much it. My ankle was letting me know then that, "Thank you, Norma, that is quite enough now."

Sigh. It's gonna be a while before I'm 100%. 

I had a picnic on my way home from my business trip: Oh-so-delicious leftover Biryani from the Bollywood Grill, where I had a wonderful dinner with Claudia and Sandy the night before last. The food was fabulous, the company was wonderful, and the waiter was flirty. What more could one wish for? Well, leftovers, of course! I took the leftovers with me and ate them outside, in the beautiful sunny and warm day, when I hit West Lebanon, NH. There was also a little bit of shopping at LLBean.

 

 

Keeping Myself Entertained In Tewksbury

I'm here for a CART gig, we worked late getting all the complicated connections set up and tested for it, and I've got a bum ankle, so there's not exactly a whole lot I can do, and I was on call so I couldn't venture more than 200 yards from the facility. So my choices for dinner were three: Wendy's, Cracker Barrel, or don't eat. I did help out the local economy by buying what looks like a fun book at the Cracker Barrel, where I also had an..um...interesting catfish dinner. The catfish was actually surprisingly delicious and well prepared. The sides... well, we won't talk about them.

I'll take the book to bed with me, and maybe this will be just quirky enough to actually hold my attention where others couldn't.

I also bought a Moon Pie. We don't have those at home -- at least I don't think so -- and it just looked like one of those old-style treats that I should try. 

I guess I wasn't really missing much. 

Travel Weary

We made it to Queens after all. It was pouring most of the way, there was crappy visibility, and the heavy black clouds made it impossible to use the GPS. Still, it could have been worse.  It wasn't snowing or icy.

But we're settled now. 

Terrier Tuesday - A Trip Down Memory Lane Edition

Dear Readers:  

The lazy blogger will, every once in a while, republish an old post and be done with it. Alpha and I had forgotten this ever happened, and when we saw it show up on the "You Might Like This" link below yesterday's post, it gave us much joy. We thought you might like to read it -- for the first time or the second time -- too. I love my mommy in her very English (dare I say "Yorkshire") newsboy-looking hat and coat, don't you? She's dressed perfectly for walking a Yorkie in Midtown Manhattan, don't you think?

First Published Saturday, December 27, 2008

361. Yelp! I've Been Kidnapped by the Yorkshire Terrierist!

With 20 minutes to spare yesterday, the spontaneous -- some might say impetuous -- action was taken to purchase a JetBlue ticket (the last seat on the plane!), pack a bag, shower (in that order) and speed to the airport to accompany Abigail and Mr. Jefferies back home to New York.  OR it could be that I have been kidnapped.  By the most terrierful terrier of all.  He demands steak and kidney pie and Yorkshire pudding, and perhaps I will be released to go back home on Monday.  

Meanwhile, Abigail and I are having a fun mother-daughter weekend, and Mr. Jefferies is busy setting about to charm the pants off everybody he meets.  Our seatmate on the way down was a Cuban American who was heading home to L.A. after his dream trip to Vermont to experience his first white Christmas (we Vermonters very kindly obliged).  He is a huge dog lover, and when we took the two seats next to him, he gave a huge thumbs up.  He said he had seen Mr. Jefferies in the airport and missed his dogs, but he had also seen many families with -- and he delivered this line the same way I might -- with [shudder] kids.  He was assuming and dreading that -- horror or horrors -- that some of those [gack] kids would be seated next to him. Instead he got the pleasure of our company and Mr. Jefferies'.  

When we got to New York, Abigail and I took Mr. Jefferies for a walk to the dog park.  That dog continues to amaze me.   He's such a smart little son-of-a-gun.  He's only six months old, and he is already seemingly well seasoned as a little walker -- not intimidated by people or big vehicles or loud noises, walks along like a little pro, knows to stop at curbs and take cues for starting up again at the white walk light.  He knows his street and likes to sprint the final two blocks, knows his building, and when let off the elevator, he knows exactly which door is his.  Sharp as a little whip.

Santa brought him a new red sweater, and he wore it on the walk.  With that sweater on, he brings coos and smiles from almost every New Yorker we meet.  

The guy has quite a lot of power and quite a lot of clout.  I'm actually not sure steak and kidney pie and Yorkshire pudding will be enough.  

Mr. Jefferies in his native environment:

After we exhausted the little guy, Abigail and I set about to exhaust ourselves.  We went to the gym, then out to dinner, then ended the day with a trip to the top of the Empire State Building.  It's right in her neighborhood, and it's a shame that we've only just walked past it.  Last night was THE perfect night for going to the top -- the crowds were low, and the temperature was brisk but not terribly freezing.  The city-lights-studded clear view was just wonderful, the skaters at Rockefeller Center looked like swarming fleas, and though it had started to rain on the street level, it was spitting snow at the top, which added a magical quality to it.  I was only pissed off by people once -- when a group of beautiful Italians were afraid to go through the revolving door and held me up from getting through myself.  (Pretty good for me -- only pissed off at people once? Excellent.  More proof that my therapy worked -- or not.)  

Abigail wouldn't let me buy the cheesy tourist photo they took of us.  Spoil sport.  

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Well, I hope you have enjoyed that little walk down memory lane authored by my Alpha.

Love,

Mr. Jefferies

 

 

 

Around the World in Three Days

Not long ago, there was some sort of a year-end Facebook app thingy that was going around. Like all Facebook apps, when you used it you were probably unintentionally signing away your health insurance plan [if you're lucky enough to have one] or your first-born puppy or your grandmother's burial plot. You were definitely showing how bored with life you were. And of course I jumped on board and used it anyway.

This particular thing purported to list your most-used words in your status updates and produce a word cloud listing them. At least that is how I remember it -- these memes come and go so fast that I quickly forget the details, and I might actually be mixing up one or two or three FB apps -- who knows. I do remember the detail, though, that an overwhelming majority of my status updates, according to the results of this thing, were about food. I was just a wee bit embarrassed about that. The next time I did a Facebook meme, the thing said that my most-used "word" all year was not a word at all, but a punctuation mark: a dash. I think that thing must be slightly whacked. "Most popular word, used 37 times: --" 

Come on. What is that? This is why I don't like memes. They're stupid. But sometimes vapid is as vapid does, and I can't help myself despite my strong feelings about them.

Anyway. It seems that I talk about food a lot. So in that vein, I thought I'd tell you about the very interesting dining experiences I had while on my most recent trip to New York.  I was only there a couple-few days, and yet after I got home, I realized that I had covered quite a lot of dining ground in and around New York. It was all lovely, but it of course means that I have to eat NOTHING and do double time at the gym for the foreseeable future. Worth it, I think.  

So here's where I et, and a few words about each place. I mean, I don't have to say much -- I'm not really a food critic, but I'm a little bit of a food-and-atmosphere snob. Then again, as I've said before, I can quite happily have a roadside hot dog at a bus stop, depending on the day. I don't have to say much in detail, though, because these were all fab! 

1.  Japanese and Thai in Queens: Kyoto. One of Abigail's favorite restaurants, and she took me there. I had a Thai dish called "Black Noodle" with chicken. So delicious !! and it was such a large portion that I took the rest home and ate it for breakfast the next morning. Abigail had sushi and we both had mochi ice cream. A really bright and delightful atmosphere, I felt. Diet blown on my first night in New York.

2.  Turkish and Mediterranean in Brooklyn: Deniz. LIKED!!!! (Though I see there are mixed reviews on Yelp.) I had the Deniz salad with chicken and the best tabouli (and excellent bread) I've ever had. The tabouli was 90% (or more) greens and only 10% (or less) couscous -- absolutely memorable and delicious, as was the conversation with my dining companion Mirabai.

3.  Brazilian in Midtown Manhattan: Plataforma Churrascaria. Bring your appetite for this one! Prix fixe (dessert and drinks not included in price) and fabulous. Don't bother going in here if you are on a diet or, obviously, if you don't eat meat. (Though there are plenty of vegetarian options at the huge salad bar, you would really be missing the point of this place. It's all about the meat.) And it's loud. Fun for groups, great food, fun atmosphere; not so great for conversation.

4. Wine and chocolate and whatever (French, I guess) in Midtown: Ayza Wine & Chocolate Bar. A most delicious arugula salad and scrumptious Belgian chocolate-dipped strawberries the size of small apples. Yummmmmmmmm. Been here several times before, because it is directly across the street from Abigail's old apartment on W. 31st. Love.it. And so when I met my Jenn for lunch and blindly followed her to the place she had in mind, I did a double take. Hey! I know this place! What a delightful surprise. Love you, cousin!

5. French again, Uptown: French Roast. Grilled chicken sandwich on a baguette with basil mayo and just a fabulous little side salad with an authentic French vinaigrette. Délicieux and a flashback to my 1995 summer in Paris. And OMG, the coffee. I had an alkie coffee drink -- chocolate truffle something-or-other, I think. And cinnamon beignets with another plain cup of coffee because the coffee was so fantasmagoric, but also because they had sort of forgotten about the beignets, I think. There was a bit of a rather ridiculous wait for them. I casually mentioned that I had really wished to have had my beignets with my coffee, and so I noticed that there was no charge on the bill for the 2nd cup of amazing coffee which was so delicious and substantial that it felt like a meal in itself. And I thought I liked Starbucks. Now that somehow feels like settling.

Good thing I left the city when I did, or a winch might be required to move me. I do not hesitate to recommend each and every one of these places to all my friends, and a few extra hours at the gym and/or a fast for the next two weeks? No problem! Enjoy! 

Oh, New York: You are really quite fabulous in all your fabulousness. 

 

 

 

 

Terrier Tuesday -- The "Wait, What Day Is This?" Edition

Dear Readers,

Je m'excuse pour les désagréments! I'm sorry I almost forgot today was my blogging day. Things have been really crazy around here. As you know, mon amie Alpha went to Jamaica with David and Abigail for the holidays. I spent the time while they were away at my arrière-grand-mère's house. She spoiled me something awful. She also taught me to speak a little bit of French, which is quite something since she doesn't speak it herself. She also fell under my considerable charm and gave me lots of walks and lots of treats and spent a good deal of the week chasing down my boots which have a way of falling off if they are not put on quite right. I taught her the proper etiquette for sleeping with a Yorkie, taught her about my meal times, taught her that she should just be quiet and clean up my pee accidents on the carpet without speaking about it too much, and taught her how much I do not like to ride in the car. 

Overall, everything went well, but now that Alpha is back, we are all still somewhat discombobulated having to do with the fact that Alpha can't stop saying she just wants to get on a fawking plane and go back. It's possible, too, that all those bottles of rum cream she brought back might have something to do with the general state of disarray around here. She hasn't even fully unpacked her suitcase yet:

...and yet, we are packing again! Alpha and I are going to drive Abigail back to New York tomorrow afternoon. Alpha wanted me to tell you that she is planning on packing super-light, and she's blaming it all on me. She says that the airline (for our flight back home this weekend) makes her designate ME IN MY CARRY-BAG (and do I need to mention how much I do not like the carry-bag?) as the carry-on baggage [THE NERVE!], and she will have to check my crate and her little bag on the plane. So she's trying to pack everything for a few days' stay in the space of a shoebox, and again... she's BLAMING IT ALL ON ME. *sigh*

So she's ..... get ready for this... not {gulp} bringing her laptop.  !!!  I think she might have had too much rum. She's not thinking straight. Her without her laptop is like me without my .... well, without my rubber chicken. But anyway, this is all to say that there might be spotty blog reports for the next few days, but we shall do our best. We hope you will be understanding. I mean, nous espérons que vous comprendrez, s'il vous plaît.

Bisous,

Monsieur Jefferies

Wish Us Luck

As much as we hate to, we are supposed to be traveling back today. The news reports don't make us too optimistic about a smooth process, but fingers crossed.

Here's to Jamaica and to the Secrets Wild Orchid Montego Bay resort. Thank you for a wonderful vacation.